Wannacry crisis: hits over 40000 Indian computers

19 Mai 2017

"It blocks access to any files on a PC until a ransom is paid".

The ransomware campaign was unprecedented in scale according to Europol, which estimates that around 200,000 computers were infected across 150 countries. "They're trying to discourage people from using Windows XP so they're jacking up the cost", said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner.

So what can people do to prepare themselves for malware attacks of the future?

A wide range of actors-spanning from nation-states, to criminals, to individual hackers-could have been responsible.

Reuters says this link seems to suggest the same North Korean hackers group is behind both attacks.

And now, the group named Shadow Brokers, that had leaked the tools from the USA national security agency's stockpile of cyber weapons, which were used by hackers for the recent attacks has said in a blog that it would be releasing hacking tools every month. Microsoft, however, had already issued a software update the month before; those that downloaded and installed the patch were protected from WannaCry, but many others lagged behind and became victims. In March, Microsoft announced that they would release a patch for the problem in their regular monthly security update.

Organizations ranging from Sony Pictures to NASA in recent years have fallen prey to similar cyberattacks, with the latter hit by CryptoLocker malware in 2013.

Apple computers appear not to be affected by WannaCry, but that does not mean that Macs or iPhones are immune to malware in general. Hence, the entire proposition on bitcoin is fueling ransomware attacks is off-based.

Make sure you regularly back up your data. Also, look for obvious typos and grammatical errors in the body. So it makes sense to assign some responsibility to the NSA - the attackers didn't come up with this security hole on their own, after all.

The developer has chosen to remain nameless but uses the Twitter account @malwaretechblog. According to various resources, the attack affected many National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England and Scotland, and up to 70,000 devices - including computers, MRI scanners, blood-storage refrigerators and theatre equipment - may have been affected. You also want to test your backups, ensure they are functioning properly, and know that you are able to quickly restore the data in the event of a cyberattack or an emergency.

"In most previous cases you would actually get an email". Copy them to an external hard drive, or even a thumb drive like this.

To rectify this, updating computer security is a must. If one employee's machine lacks the latest security software, it can infect other machines across the company network.

While there have been no reports of agriculture companies being affected by WannaCry that's not to say the industry is not at risk.

"Hundreds of ATMs being shut down in India is recognition of the fact that the ransomware attack which is happening globally is increasingly also looking at India". Then report the crime to law enforcement and seek help from a technology professional who specializes in data recovery to see what your options might be.

If you don't pay, your encrypted files are lost. Over the course of the attack, the majority of mainstream media outlets in the USA continued to emphasize the involvement of bitcoin in the attack, rather than the utilization of the NSA tool which was developed using taxpayers' money. That raised the crisis-level stakes of the attack and increased the chances that stricken victims would be coerced into paying.